This is somewhat tangential, but it reminds me of knives and thus sgian dubhs (sgians dubh?). Once upon a time I was at the Warrior Club at 29 Palms, having a beer and a hotdog. Two officers came up to the table and invited themselves to sit down. I was reading a mammoth volume on Russia in the Second World War, and while I didn't mind the officers joining me, I wasn't done sitting there reading my book, either. Finally the junior officer asked about the knife under my blouse (we'd come in from the field earlier that day after a 3-day FX). It was your basic Mk1 Mod0 Ka-Bar. I told the captain that it wasn't a weapon, it was a field expedient MRE opener. He didn't like that. I finished my beer (figuring I was about to get kicked out) and told him it was a field expedient comm-wire splicer (which, in point of fact, it had been used for that very day). Then, fortuitously, LCpl Pedroza came by, and I deputized him to take the knife back to the hooch and ensure that it was properly secured. Then I read another chapter of my book, taking my time, out of stubbornness.

It was a bust on my part to take the Ka-Bar in with me---but I don't think of it as a weapon, and certainly didn't while I was actively wearing the pickle suit.

I've never had a sgian dubh cause me any problems, because after the Ka-Bar incident I'm leery of carrying fixed blades. I've got a series of old Case, bone handled pocket knives inherited from my father and his father before him, which I carry in my sporran instead.

I don't regard the sgian dubh as a weapon, but as a tool and a ceremonial one at that. Society does not always agree with my takes on things, and this is one of those cases.

That was never really a problem for me, although now that the O'Neille sgian has arrived, I suddenly have a craving to stick it in my hose and strut around with it!